Saturday, June 20, 2015

It's time for Breakfast Links - our weekly round-up of fav links to other web sites, blogs, articles, and images, all gathered for you via Twitter.
• The Major Oak: Did this tree once shelter Robin Hood and Maid Marion?
• Recreating the Duke of Wellington's victory banquet.
• The world of Charles I and Henrietta Marie is revealed in this wonderfully intricate raised embroidery.
• The 400 arrests of Annie Parker, 1873.
• Needled: The needles and knitting sticks used by 18th-19th c. knitters.
• Image: 17th Lancers - officer's czapka.
• Following up on one of our own posts: illustrated news from the Crimean War, c1853.
• The history of a 1789 linen tablecloth.
• A new life in Australia for prisoner Sarah Bird (1763-1842).
• Discovering more about Jane Austen from her c1812 pelisse.
• Were there Canadians at the Battle of Waterloo?
• Image: Decorative wax fruit: creating arrangements was a fashionable 19thc. pastime for ladies.
• The development and the dangers of the stirrup.
• The "Pulpit Bridge": an 1877 railway bridge designed by a peer who was also a lay rector.
• Recipe for making sambocade, a medieval elderflower cheesecake (and it looks DELICIOUS.)
• Seventeenth-century children in portraits, almost out of doors.
• Not all American First Ladies have been married to presidents.
• Image: Street sign proving that the Lewes District Council shows neither fear nor favor.
• Rome's international community of the dead: the cemetery where both Shelley and Keats are buried.
• The magnificent House of Dun near Montrose in Angus, a perfect Scottish Georgian country house.
• Gawk: 25 of fashion's most famous (and handsome) male models.
• Image: Queen Elizabeth II took part in her first Trooping the Color parade in 1947 as Princess Elizabeth - riding side-saddle.
• Cooking with glass: How Pyrex transformed every kitchen into a home-ec laboratory.
• Dive in to six historic swimming pools.
• Image: Draft of Angelina Grimke's 1838 wedding invitation.
• Fitzroy Somerset gave his right arm for Wellington - but was it reciprocated?
• What to wear when you don't have a halo: women's headdresses in medieval manuscripts.
• Image: Just for fun: what to do when the news is old.Hungry for more? Follow us on Twitter @2nerdyhistgirls for fresh updates daily.

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A Polite Explanation

There’s a big difference in how we use history. But we’re equally nuts about it. To us, the everyday details of life in the past are things to talk about, ponder, make fun of -- much in the way normal people talk about their favorite reality show.

We talk about who’s wearing what and who’s sleeping with whom. We try to sort out rumor or myth from fact. We thought there must be at least three other people out there who think history’s fascinating and fun, too. This blog is for them.